Governor Kathy Hochul announced that nearly $28 million has been awarded to advance 10 energy efficiency and electrification projects as part of New York State’s Empire Building Challenge. The awarded partners collectively represent more than 123 million square feet of real estate and more than 123,000 multifamily residential units, including more than 13,000 affordable housing units across the state.
These multifamily projects will help to unlock more than $150 million in private investment while attracting solution providers from around the world to bring innovation and business investment to New York State. The announcement featured a diverse range of enhanced low-carbon building solutions that can help reduce fossil fuel use in a building up to 100%, improve comfort and living conditions for residents and achieve operating cost savings for building owners.
“New York State is once again leading by example and tackling one of the largest energy consumers — large buildings,”Hochul said. “Thanks to the support and partnership of the real estate industry, the Empire Building Challenge has spurred innovative demonstration projects that are driving building modernization across the state, and these multifamily projects are just another step forward toward a cleaner, healthier future for all New Yorkers.”
Through the Empire Building Challenge (EBC), administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), each project was awarded up to $3 million to demonstrate and address opportunities for energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in multifamily buildings. The projects include 22 showcase buildings of which 17 are located in disadvantaged communities, as defined by the New York State Climate Justice Working Group.
EBC is now supporting 19 demonstration projects across all cohorts, with 27 real estate leaders controlling 400 million square feet of commercial and multifamily real estate in New York, and who have made public commitments to decarbonize more than 128 million square feet of space. In total, these real estate partners control more than 200,000 units of housing throughout the state, representing a clear signal from the New York real estate industry for high quality, low-carbon solutions for multifamily buildings, with significant potential for replication of successful solutions across large portfolios.
Additionally, the Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings (Playbook) – a free online resource to support building owners advancing energy retrofits in large commercial and multifamily buildings, was also updated to include a new toolkit feature with a spotlight on heat recovery and design charrettes as two important practice areas for strategic decarbonization planning, as well as new multifamily case studies for the 10 newly selected demonstration projects.
Launched in 2024, the Playbook was created through a partnership between NYSERDA, Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (ESRT) and other Empire Building Challenge real estate partners, with RMI, Building Energy Exchange, and Urban Land Institute. It features case studies and an expansive resource library of best practices and technical information to support building owners and the engineering community in planning and implementing low carbon retrofit projects.
This program is funded through NYSERDA’s 10-year, $6 billion Clean Energy Fund.
